Little goodies

Your Foods and Goods Footprint

Here are a few ways you could reduce your foods and goods footprint. Share these helpful tips with your family and friends to try make a difference to the environment.

Shop at your local farmer's market. Look for local, in-season foods that haven't travelled long distances to reach you. Organic and other forms of low-input farming that use minimal or no pesticides and fertilisers – which are energy intensive in their manufacture.

Choose foods with less packaging to reduce waste.

Plant a garden! Growing our own fruit and vegetables reduces all the energy and waste which normally goes into getting food from the field to our plates – such as transport, refrigeration and packaging. In your garden you can compost food waste as well. Garbage that is not contaminated with degradable (biological) waste can be more easily recycled and sorted.

Going meatless for just one meal a week can make a difference - more often is even better! The livestock industry contributes more greenhouse gas emissions globally than the transport sector and the ecological footprint of vegetarians is estimated to be around half that of meat eaters.

Buy less! Try to get your things repaired - this supports local business and avoids waste. Replace items only when you really need to and try to buy quality products that will have a longer life-span.